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The 118th Congress has arrived, and after 15 grueling voting sessions, we finally have a Speaker of the House: Kevin McCarthy. This is the first time an election for speaker went to multiple ballots since 1923, and that is not the only element of the history-making chaos. To secure the gavel, McCarthy agreed to lower the number of members needed to begin a vote of “no confidence” from 5 to 1, and agreed to cap the levels of discretionary spending at FY22 levels; he has promised a slew of new subcommittees; agreed to re-organize appropriations; and the list goes on, to the point where Matt Gaetz, McCarthy’s nemesis in the Speaker race, “ran out of stuff to ask for.” As the drama unfolds, we find ourselves asking exactly What the Hell is Going On… who are these self-described “rebels” in Congress, really? What does this mean for defense spending and Ukraine, and balancing the budget in general?
These questions and more with our guest Chad Pergram. Chad is a Senior Congressional Correspondent at Fox News. He has won an Edward R. Murrow Award and is a two-time recipient of the Joan Barone Award. Prior to Fox he was a Senate producer for C-SPAN, producer and anchor for NPR, and a reporter for the Capitol News Connection.
Download the transcript here.
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You all complain all the time about out-of-control spending, the growing administrative state, and the authoritarian impulses of the Biden administration. Now when 20 Republicans did something about it, you spend an hour castigating them.